Sundays are the best

Saturday night I was feeling a bit nostalgic and was looking through a lot of pictures from my time on the West Coast. Sometimes I really miss my time there.. But on Sunday morning I woke up to the sound of those church bells next door, and realized how much I love hearing them.  It's the sound of being warm in my cozy bed, of sipping espresso in the morning, of sharing a bottle of wine with friends in the evening... It's the sound of being home.

Sunday was a perfect day, and I didn't even leave Wedding, the district of Berlin that I call mine.  Or am I hers?

The day started with a coffee and church bells.  Then, at noon, German brunch with Mir.  Fruit, four different kinds of cheese, three kinds of cold cuts/salami, bread, scrambled eggs with chives, and butter. So much heartier than the French breakfasts I had all summer (a piece of baguette with butter and honey, or a croissant.. Tasty but I was hungry an hour later), or the Italian breakfast I have now (espresso).  And the coffees came with pieces of homemade chocolate cake. Dee-lishhhh.

After eating and talking..and talking and eating.. And then having another coffee...Mir took me on a tour of Wedding. As a native Berliner and Weddinger, I had asked him about good places to go in the 'hood. Instead of just telling me the names of the places, he actually showed me where to go with a running commentary about why it was a good place and what I should order/drink/do.  Gas here is not cheap -- it's actually really freaking expensive, like $7/gallon -- but the weather was cold and rainy so he drove me everywhere.  I was trying my best to remember the places but he kept showing me more and more, so finally I started making a list on my phone.  And the places I couldn't remember, I managed to find again on my run this morning.. Yay me for finding them again, and yay Mir for being so awesomely amazing enough to show me all of them.

After my intense introduction to Wedding, we had one more stop to make -- Volkspark.  It's a huge park near the airport Tegel. It was cold and drizzling and I was wearing wedges but it was perfect anyway as we walked and talked and drank Mate. And then, as we were getting ready to go back to the car.. The rain stopped and the clouds shifted just enough to clear the horizon. Where there had been only gray just minutes before, the sky was on fire with pink and purple and blue.  Bare trees were highlighted in stark contrast against the vivid sky and I couldn't stop staring at it.  Nature is so breathtakingly beautiful and moments like that are really precious to me... Perfect.